Sunday, October 11, 2015

Here’s what I can say on the posted “defense” on some so-called “fulfilled Bible Prophecies.”

On Ezekiel 29:8-12

8 " 'Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will bring a sword against you and kill your men and their animals. 9 Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then they will know that I am the LORD. " 'Because you said, "The Nile is mine; I made it," 10 therefore I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. 11 No foot of man or animal will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years. 12 I will make the land of Egypt desolate among devastated lands, and her cities will lie desolate forty years among ruined cities. And I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them through the countries.

According to the apologist, “Ezekiel 29:8-12 was penned by Ezekiel “in the tenth year,” which is the tenth year after Ezekiel was taken into captivity-in other words 587 BC. Within a year of Ezekiel recording this prophecy Egypt abandoned Judah, allowing Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem. Egypt remained independent for another two generations, but after Cyrus destroyed Babylon in 539 BC, his son Cambysses invaded Egypt in 522 BC, bringing devastation throughout Egypt. Herodotus (Herodotus 3:7-33) describes in detail the destruction of Egypt, the capture of Pharaoh Psammenitus and the devastation of Egypt, as prophesied by God through Ezekiel. Cambysses took Memphis and Sais, even killing the apis bull, shaming the Egyptians. Later, the Egyptians did regain their independence, but they were never again the world power they had been for more than two thousand years before this prophecy.

The date Ezekiel received the prophecy was "in the tenth year," which is the tenth year after Ezekiel was taken into captivity-in other words 587 BC." That's what he said...

Hahaha! Going around the bush but he failed to be direct to his point. There are 2 claims here... 1.) That Egypt was conquered by the Babylonians and 2.) That Egypt became desolate for 40 years. Both claims were not addressed.

Uhhh… well, the claim was that this passage refers to the Battle of Carchemish of 605 BCE., in which Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egyptian army. But this is absurd, since that battle was before, not after, the siege of Tyre - which concluded around 573 BCE. The prophesy was received in 571 BCE not 587 BCE (See: Ezekiel 1:1-2).

Nebuchadnezzar launched an attack against the outskirts of Egypt but there were no evidence that he conquered it. Also, Pharaoh Amasis remained in power from 568-525 BCE ruling over a prosperous kingdom, which brings to a point that Egypt never became desolate for 40 years. [J.E. Manchip White “Ancient Egypt: Its Culture and History” Dover Publications, 1970 p.200 ]

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Prophecies? Nah… most of these so-called “Bible prophecies” were not even been fulfilled. Some are… well, not even existing. The problem here is that some “Bible fanatics” doesn’t even bother themselves to read and do honest research when they read claims such as these “prophecy fulfillment” and since a lot of religiots are such lazy bones, let me just supply you folks of a little bit of light on these so-called prophecies.

Now, open your Bible and look for the following chapters and verses:

1.According to Isa 19:5, Eze 30:12, and Zec 10:11, the Nile River will dry up, and according to Eze 29:9-12, Egypt will become desolate for 40 years, with no man or animal passing through it and with all Egyptians dispersed, but as a matter of fact the Nile River has never dried up and in the whole history of Egypt no such calamitous events have ever occurred.

2. Isaiah noted that Babylon would be destroyed by God. He would cause the Medes to lead a coalition of nations against the city, destroying it in bloody warfare. This event would secure the release of God's people from their oppressors (Isa 13:1-22; 14:22).

The city of Babylon has through the ages been occupied to some degree contra the ravings of the prophets. It was a capital under the Persians for a time. Later it surrendered to Alexander the Great (ca. 332 BCE) -again, peacefully- and was spared any harm. The city eventually passed in Parthian hands and dwellings of the Parthian occupation have been found. Then it passed in Sassanian hands, whose ruins have also been documented. Then it passed into Arab hands, whose presence is documented until the 11th or 12 century CE. When Koldeway arrived in Babylon to excavate it on behalf of the German Oriental Society (1880's- 1917) he made a map of the site, which shows several Arab settlements within the walls of the ancient city. He called them Dorf Ananeh, Dorf Dschumdschuma, Dorf Kweiresch, and Dorf Sindschar (cf. map of Babylon on p. 12. Robert Koldewey. Das wieder erstehende Babylon. [Herausgegeben Barthel Hrouda]. Munchen. Verlag C. H. Beck. 1990. ISBN 3-406-31674-3). Much of the city has been turned into Date-palm plantations and these plantations are serviced by the villagers near and in Babylon. So, contra the prophets, Babylon was never really abandoned "forevermore".

3. On Joshua 1:3-5 God promises to give Joshua all of the land that his "foot shall tread upon." He says that none of the people he encounters will be able to resist him. But later we find that God didn't keep his promise, and that many tribes withstood Joshua's attempt to steal their land.

4. Joshua tells the Israelites that God will "without fail" drive out the Canaanites and the Jebusites. But later, the Bible tells us that he could not drive them out. Joshua 3:10 vs. Judges 1:19, Judges 1:21.

7. It was said that, after being destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, Tyre would never be rebuilt and would never be found again (Eze 26:14,21, 27:36, 28:19). But in the NT, Tyre still survives as this NT verse demonstrates:

21Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession." (Matt. 15:21)3After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo.(Acts 21:3).

8. Jer 34:5 prophesied that Zedekiah will die in peace, but according to 2Ki 25:7 and Jer 52:10-11, that did not happen. Instead, he saw his sons killed, was carried off in chains, blinded, and eventually died in prison.

9. Amon 7:17 prophesied that Amaziah's sons will die by the sword, but according to 2Ch 26:1,21, Amaziah's son Uzziah died of leprosy.

10. Isaiah 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction. Yet, not only has the Canaanite language never been spoken by Egyptians, but it is now an extinct language.

11. Exodus 23:25-31 And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil. I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines [Mediterranean Sea[8]], and from the desert unto the river [the Euphrates river[9]]: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.

This didn’t happened. Israel's borders have rarely reached the Red Sea, and have never reached the Euphrates, which is in central Iraq.

12. Nathan prophesized that the descendants of Solomon will rule Judah forever.

He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever. - 2 Samuel 7:13-16

Sadly, it didn’t happened. The Davidic line ended with King Zedekiah in about 586 BCE.

13. Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

Happily, Damascus is still inhabited today with over a million people.

14. Ezekiel 29:10-11 Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.

Never in its long history has Egypt ever been uninhabited for forty years.

15. Matthew 27:9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.

This prophecy was never spoken by Jeremiah.

16. Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.

Nowhere in the Old Testament is such a prophecy found, so how such a one could be fulfilled?

17. Ezekiel 30:10-11 “This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He and his army – the most ruthless of nations – will be brought in to destroy the land. They will draw their swords against Egypt and fill the land with the slain.”

Ezekiel predicts that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon will conquer Egypt utterly destroying it, slaying and scattering its people. In 568 BCE Nebuchadnezzar tried to conquer Egypt and Egypt survived with no apparent damage. Aahmes ruled for another generation over a prosperous Egypt and lived to see Nebuchadnezzar die. The Egyptians were not scattered or dispersed.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

First things first, in order for
god to create the universe he must exists outside the universe. Well, that’s a
very convenient way to put it. In other words, for god to be exempted to the
rule of causation, he must exists outside time and space. It’s not really new. The idea that the
biblical god must be outside time started by the pagan philosopher Plotinus
(205-270 CE). His idea came from Plato,
and then it was adopted by Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas and the Jewish
philosopher Maimonides.

Time is a human invention. It is an invention used to describe observed
phenomena in the external world. To describe it more simpler, time is simply
the number of ticks on a clock. To make things a little complicated, some
philosophers defined time as an illusion. Some even say that it doesn’t even exists.
According to Alfred North Whitehead and the French
intuitionist Henri Bergson, time can be grasped only by
nonrational intuition and the scientific concept of time as a dimension
actually misrepresents reality. Some even believed that before the universe
existed, there was no time. This idea
will fit the idea that god must be outside time. But again…

Lately, only few Christian theologians
promote this “outside time” theory of God. The reasons: It’s not biblical and
frankly, it is non-demonstrative and it makes no sense. According to Christian apologist William Lane
Craig, everything that began to exist has a cause and yes, that exclude god
since god is supposed to be timeless. However, Dr. Craig offered the possibility
that god is timeless based on a different type of time. He called this an
“undifferentiated time.” Well… an undifferentiated time is still “time” – just
like the same as our time, it can be divided by moments and units of duration
so obviously, Dr. Craig knows the problem.

So what is it like to be a god outside
time?

If god is outside time, then he
cannot act nor make any decision, since to act takes a deliberate change (from
point A to point B) and to decide on something needs a deliberate time – to
consider his options. A god outside time can be a little bit puzzling since he
can make and un-make something at the same time – an idea which is quite
absurd. Thinking about creation – a god outside time can make creation actually
happened and not happening all in the same time, but then the universe
(according to Christians) was created, right? So, how could god create
something outside time since cause and effect must precede its effect in time? A
god outside time cannot think since thinking is govern by succession of mental
events and complex thoughts. Therefore, a god outside time doesn’t think,
doesn’t move, cannot create, cannot act, and cannot even make decisions.

Another problem that face this
“god outside time” is the Bible. The biblical god is a personal god which is
known to interact with humans. He also feel the same human feelings like
regret, jealousy, anger, and love. A god
outside time cannot have feelings since this god must be in some sort of a
super-time outside our space-time universe, looking at everything past, present
and future all simultaneously which prevents him to interact – that will be
quite impossible since all throughout the Bible, different prophets have talked
to god and asked him of his feelings, and his next plan of action. The biblical
god have plans and sure enough, this god have his ways set up following a
pattern in time. The Judeo-Christian Bible was compiled in a chronological
order and god has his own time table from creation till his so-called final
judgment.

Now, since planning and decision
making requires time, then the biblical god is not outside time since a god
outside time can only have a flash of a super thought to figure out everything–
this makes god an impersonal motionless block of solid mass and a very few
Bible pages.

In case you don’t have any idea
what the hell is he talking about, here’s the Isaiah prophesy:

And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a
fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts. And the
waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.And they shall turn
the rivers far away; [and] the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up:
the reeds and flags shall wither.The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks,
and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no
[more].The
fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall
lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. - Isaiah
19:4-8

For Bible believers, prophecies
are very important on proving the Bible and the existence of their god. Since they believed that the Bible was
inspired by a god, fulfilment of prophecies are evidence of supernatural and
divine authorship in which only an omnipresent God can provide. – If the prophesy was fulfilled, the Bible is
true – therefore, their god exists! Sadly, it’s really not that easy.

Take Manuel Tecson for example.

According to him, the BBC news
about the (supposed to be…) drying up of the Nile River because of the Grand
Renaissance Dam was (again, supposed to be) the fulfillment of Isaiah 19:4-8,
therefore… wait a minute? The prophesy was not talking about a dam drying up
the Nile. The statement is very clear – the Egyptian was supposed to be
defeated and to be govern by a fierce king, then the river (Nile?) will
“supposed” to “dry up.” Now, most Bible
scholars agree that Isaiah 19:4-8 was predicting the time when Egypt was
conquered by the Assyrians in 671 BCE.

Wait?

That was about thousands of years ago, right? About 2,600
years ago. Oh and by the way, in that period there were no historical accounts
that says the Nile dried up. Does the prophesy says that the Egyptians will be
conquered by the Assyrians and 2,600 years later, the Nile will dry up because
of a dam that was built in Ethiopia? I don’t think so. That will make Isaiah a very lousy prophet.

I think Manuel Tecson was quite too late on his
interpretation of Isaiah 19:4-8.